Do you support the teabaggers?

Heck yeah!

meh OK

Nah

Hell no

According to polls, only 2% of teabaggers realize that Obama has actually cut taxes!

Death Panels?

Socialist?

Communist?

What world are these ppl living in?

it seems only 18% of Americans support the tea baggers

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"We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families."

Barack Obama on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 in a State of the Union speech
Tax cut for 95 percent? The stimulus made it so
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President Barack Obama talked a lot about economic recovery during his State of the Union address on Jan. 27, 2010, including the benefits of the economic stimulus bill passed last year.

The stimulus, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, included tax cuts for many Americans, Obama said.

"We cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses," Obama said. "We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college."

Democrats applauded, while Republicans were silent for the most part. In one of the unscripted moments of the night, Obama looked at the Republican side of the room, smiled and said, "I thought I'd get some applause on that one."

Here, we wanted to check Obama's statement that he cut taxes for 95 percent of working families.

The key word in his statement is "working." Obama's claim is based on a tax cut intended to offset payroll taxes. Under the stimulus bill, single workers got $400, and working couples got $800. The Internal Revenue Service issued new guidelines to reduce withholdings for income tax, so many workers saw a small increase in their checks in April 2009.

The tax cut was part of Obama's campaign promises. During the campaign, Obama said he wanted $500 for each worker and $1,000 for working couples. Since the final number was a bit less than he promised, we rated his promise a Compromise on our Obameter, where we rate Obama's campaign promises for fulfillment.

During the campaign, the independent Tax Policy Center researched how Obama's tax proposals would affect workers. It concluded 94.3 percent of workers would receive a tax cut under Obama's plan based on the tax credit to offset payroll taxes. According to the analysis, the people who wouldn't get a tax cut are those who make more than $250,000 for couples or $200,000 for a single person. Obama said he intended to raise taxes on those high earners, a promise he reiterated during the State of the Union, and that revenue would offset the stimulus tax cut.

Because the stimulus act did give that broad-based tax cut
to workers, we rate Obama's statement True.

On Tuesday, a wave of protesters, upset with overly-burdensome taxation by the federal government, are set to descend on the nation's capital to express their displeasure.

But does their anger reflect the truth about today's tax rates?

After all, neutral economists insist that, under the Obama administration, the overwhelming likelihood is that your tax burden has gone down, not up. Even conservative economic analysts acknowledge that there really is no basis for middle- and working-class Americans to believe that they're suddenly paying more.

"The only tax I think that has been put in place so far is an increase in the federal cigarette tax. I can't think of another Obama tax that has gone in place so far," said Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies at the conservative Cato Institute. "I would say that people are angry because big taxes are coming down the road because of the gigantic deficit built up under Bush and continued under Obama."

And yet, Thursday is expected to bring a range of hotly-charged rhetoric over the damage this 'tax-and-spend' president has done to the general public's bottom line.

A look at the numbers tells a different story. For starters: the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported on Wednesday that "Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels." How low? The average family of four right now is paying 4.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes -- the second lowest percentage in 50 years.

A report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, meanwhile, asserts that the president's economic stimulus package has sent more than $200 billion in tax relief and other benefits to mainly middle- and lower-income families since its passage.
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Citizens for Tax Justice, a self-described non-partisan organization, released a report on Tuesday that read: "The 2009 economic stimulus bill actually reduced federal income taxes for tax year 2009 for 98 percent of all working families and individuals." This total includes the 95 percent of working families that will or have received tax credits in the range of $400 to $800.

The health care bill passed by the administration, meanwhile, includes a tax credit that could cover up to 35 percent of the premiums a small business pays to insure its workers. The Recovery Act, meanwhile, included such tax breaks as a $1,500 credit for home energy improvements, and an $8,000 credit for first-time home buyers.

It has been a buffet of tax breaks and credits offered by this administration (occasionally to the chagrin of progressive economists, who want more focus on stimulative federal spending).

Yet polling numbers indicate that Americans are barely aware of these developments. Indeed, a good chunk of the country believes it has been saddled by this administration with tax hikes. Back in mid-February, a full 24 percent of respondents to a CBS News/New York Times poll said that their taxes had increased under Obama. Fifty-three percent said they had stayed the same. Only 12 percent thought their taxes had gone down.

"Belief is triumphing over reality," explained Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "Part of it is they watch the wrong television shows and believe it. Part of it is the tax cut that went to almost everybody, the making work pay credit, was dribbled out... people didn't get a check. They paid lower taxes and might not have noticed it.

"It is like arguing whether Jesus rose from the dead," McIntyre concluded. "If you believe it, you believe it."

On Thursday, those who don't believe it will be making their voices heard. At least four separate demonstrations are being planned around the capital in honor of tax day, including two protests next to Congress, an online broadcast "tax revolt" and another rally at the Washington Monument. They will, however, be countered by a start-up group called "The Other 95%," which will descend on D.C. on Thursday to protest "right across from Tea Party rally." It should be an interesting, if not occasionally wonky, show-down.

"Obama passed 25 separate tax cuts," Sheryl Stein, founding member of "The Other 95%" said in a statement announcing the group's plans, "including $300 billion in middle class tax cuts -- one of the largest in history - as part of the stimulus package. Unlike President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, which went to the wealthiest 2.2%, President Obama's tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit working and middle class families -- in fact, 95% of all Americans."

And there is some indication that Americans are satisfied, generally speaking, with the current trade-off between their tax burden and the benefits that government provides. "Just ahead of Tax Day, a new New York Times/CBS News poll finds that most Americans regard the income taxes that they will have to pay this year as fair, regardless of political partisanship, ideology or income level," the Times reported.
Perhaps even more surprising, though, is that even among the 18 percent of Americans who say they support the Tea Party movement, more than half call their own income tax fair. Sentiment turns more sour, however, among the smaller group of Tea Party supporters who are active in the movement. Most of them, 55 percent, regard the income tax they have to pay as unfair. Thousands of Tea Party supporters gathered in Boston today for a rally near the original site of the Boston Tea Party.

Tea party ideals are nothing more but wet dreams in the eyes of a libertarian. Really I wouldn't call it a libertarian movement, it's really a anti-federalist movement. I would also say the majority of the Tea Party movement ain't nothing more than disillusioned ignorance.

Supporters say "it's not a racist movement", ok sure fine the fringe of that movement are the ones that are racist. But all one has to do is go to one (been to 3 myself in Texas) and realize it ain't nothing more than being afraid that whitey is no longer on the top shelf of the government.

When you have idiots such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin taking over the movement all your credibilty goes down the shiter.

I agree. The whole movement is a loose alliance of reactionary types bearing some type of raw gripe against white marginalization, taxation, federal overreach, illegal immigration, and a slew of other right-wing concerns. It's spontaneity only seems to further it's visceral origins.

Then again, that's American democracy at work. Better they protest obnoxiously than get violent (although some fringe elements seem borderline revolutionary).

Well that or they are just evil. They just dont want the rich paying taxes. If old ppl starve or ppl die because of lack of healthcare, or ppl go bankrupt , or jobs are shipped overseas.........

well, its all worthit as long as millionares and billionares and corporations get tax breaks and dont get regulated.

also, it has failed. The model of deregulating everything and letting corporations do as they please has failed!

look at this shit.

Outrageous: Exxon Mobil Paid No Income Tax in 2009

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”

This is what the immoral teabaggers are defending.......... but they are too stupid to realize it. meanwhile glenn beck is laughing at them. Wondering to himself how its possible to essentially turn these ppl into silly putty in his hands.

Essentially ppl like beck appeal to these idiots with things like "confederate month" and other not so veiled notions of racism, theocracy, and violence............ while the actual product is a wall street financial policy that outsources american manufacturing, runs up huge deficits by not taxing the ultra rich and embarking on an aggressor imperial foreign policy, destroys regulations on things like drinking water and coal mine safety and lead in toys, attacks civil rights, busts unions and labor power etc etc.

These ppl are dangerous because they are soooooooooo stupid and uniformed. If hannity or beck told them to get violent, they would in a heartbeat.

I mean look at this. Beck is laughing at them.

(((((((((((((

Glenn Beck himself from last week's Forbes profile:
"I could give a flying crap about the political process." Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. "We're an entertainment company," Beck says.

And there you go. "I could give a flying crap about the political process." Given the hyperkinetic poo-flinging on his show every day, Glenn Beck knows flying crap. There's really no gray area here. It's all about the entertainment value inherent in ginned-up controversy. And right now, anger and insanity sells with Beck's white, conservative, Christian audiences.

Orson Welles, one of Glenn Beck's broadcasting heroes. In fact, the name of Beck's production company, Mercury Radio Arts (officially known as Glenn Beck, Inc.), is based on Welles' CBS radio show -- the radio show that famously aired one of broadcasting's most legendary hoaxes: The War of the Worlds.

Unlike the various Glenn Beck shows and publications, the Mercury performance of the H.G. Welles classic featured a disclaimer at the end (quoted above), formally noting the fictitious nature of the broadcast.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2009).